Koreans Love Fried Chicken

On Saturday Joe and I tried our best to go to a "Kia Tigers" game. Baseball teams here are not named after towns or provinces. Just the companies who sponsor them. We waited in a long line for over 2 hours. I guess it normally isn't that busy, but they had been winning a lot of games lately. The line refused to move. We didn't know if the game had sold out or if the booth hadn't opened yet. We even had three Koreans with us, no one knew what was going on. In the states such a large mob would never have been so calm and complacent with waiting for no clear reason. We may not have been able to get our fix of beer and chicken in the stadium, but such pleasures weren't far away!
(I am eating some nice squishy octopi above. The heads are so squishy!!!)





This picture is by a team bus. Just after I took it, a Korean toddler broke from his mother's grasp and plowed right into me! I make friends so easily.










To the displeasure of Joe and me, the Koreans picked a "sit on the floor" restaurant. Our western backs and weak caucasian knees were not accustomed to squatting...

But that's what beer and chicken is for. An interesting thing about Korean chicken. Sometimes you can tell what part of the chicken it is from. Most of the time you can't.

They do make a mean bird though!


All of these signs were taken within a block from each other!
(I especially love the one's where a chicken is serving/ eating chicken!!!)














































Before the chicken we were served the usual squid appetizers. There were still squidbeaks inside.












Here is a small shot of downtown (Sheenay) Gwangju.
There are about 1/2 of the signs and 1/2 of the normal levels of people here. Odd but welcoming to see English signs,
Korean and Konglish (the mix of the two) side by side.


Dunkin Donuts is
everywhere. Most are
modest in size but some
like this are three stories.
When you charge
3,000 W. for coffee (about $2.50) you can
afford to have a tower of sugar and caffeine.















Three hours in the hot sun waiting for tickets plus much chicken makes us very tired by 9:00. Nothing a stop by BK can't fix. It is the only source of PURE American fast food. For beef anyway. The Mcdee's fries and BK fries are the same. Only Burger King keeps their same burger size.


...Thanks King.

Teaching has been great!!

My walk to work only takes me about 10 minutes. I usually carry an umbrella ever day. I use it during the day too! It keeps the harsh Asian sun off my sensitive white skin.

Gwangju has a population of about 1.5 million. That is a big number, but it never seems crowded in Bongsundong (my section of town). I will show some pictures of Downtown and then you will see some real bustle!!



Here is my school, Avalon (below). One floor above me is a smaller private school for young elementary students. It is owned by the same company, so we will occasionally mingle for lunch.

Lunch! For 40k won a month (around 35 dollars) I get meals. A lunch and a dinner. There is a little smaller building built on to the roof. This has been great! It has allowed me to try more knew Korean foods than ever possible on my own. This will surprise people who know me. I realize I am famous for staying away from "busy foods." But the Koreans have been impressed by my love for squid, and willingness to consume whatever is put in front of me (unbearably spicy food aside). I have also been able to avoid anything resembling food poisoning!




You get used to seeing a lot of signs in Korea. No space is wasted! If there is a wall, there is a sign or ad on it. I enjoy this, because so many of them have cartoons! I knew I would like this country, when I saw a sign for the police, It there was this little weird police/person cartoon character.












Here are my fellow Korean and English speaking foreigners hard at work! They are very good to us...they keep the air on all day. This means that a few of them use blankets while they work.

The air is ALWAYS on in my class rooms. every day a skinny 80 pound student will raise their hand and say "teacher, cold, turn air off." I just stare and shake my head. "Teacher will never turn the air off. If the air is off, will become cranky and give more detentions." If I want to get their attention, I make it one degree colder. They hear the beep, look up and gasp!

First Week in Gwangju Korea!

Greetings friends and family!
Every day since my arrival has been fantastic. In order to buffer the effects of jet-lag I avoided sleep before my 6:30 am flight from Fargo (I was also doing some last minute packing...).

My flight from Fargo led me to Denver, then San Francisco, and the direct to Seoul ( Incheon National Airport). The flights went well, much to my disgust however, were the in flight movies. It seemed that the Eastbound flights hoarded
all of the good movies ( Up, Coraline, etc ). I was stuck with Wolverine, Confessions of a Shopaholic and Adventureland. I did make some great friends on the flight, which was good!

After the 11 hour flight to Korea, was my 4 hour bus ride to Gwangju. The bus proved to be my first introduction to Korean telivision and pop-culture, as there was an HD TV mounted to the front. I was subjected to the most...interesting commercials I have ever seen. Some involved dancing, others involved robot rhinoserouses and giraffes. I only understood what two were trying to sell. One was KFC, and the other was for a feminine product.

At the bus station I was immediately flagged down and greeted by Joseph, a smiling and very friendly staff member at my school. It was midnight by now, and I had only roughly 4 hours of sleep after being awake for over 40 hours, so I was more than happy to be led to my apartment (after a pit stop at the 7/11 for some OJ and bottled water).



Here is the outside of my building!


The accommodations are ideal, one room, a bathroom (no shower stall, just a hose with a sprinkler, and you try not to get the whole room wet!)
I was especially ecstatic to see that there was an air conditioner!!!

More tomorrow ( or before I go to bed!)